The subject matter disclosed herein relates to curved X-ray detectors.
Current solutions for radiographic inspection of pipes and pipe welds are often based on exposing a radiation sensitive film that is curved to fit the pipe to an X-ray source. The film may then be developed and reviewed for assessing the state of a weld or, in other instances, some other pipe health or quality metric. Such film-based approaches are slow, time consuming and, notably, do not generate digital images, absent some form of conversion of the film. Further, such film-based approaches do not allow for efficient archival, for automated analysis or for remote review.
To the extent digital systems exits for automated pipe girth inspection, such systems are slow and bulky. In particular, digital X-ray detectors are typically fabricated on thick, inflexible glass substrates. The glass substrate requires the substrate to remain in a flat, rigid conformation, which may make imaging in compliance with regulatory requirements difficult, as ASME and ASMT requirements constrain the distance that the detector can be from the surface of the pipe. Thus, a flat, glass substrate may allow for imaging only limited portions of a pipe at a time while remaining in compliance with the requirements.
Further, X-ray detectors based on a glass substrate have a limited ruggedness specification, including a maximum 30 cm drop height, which may be unsuitable for field work. As a result, in a portable detector the glass substrate requires significant package thickness and weight to protect the fragile glass substrate from breaking during use, transportation and storage. Trade-offs may, therefore, be required to balance detector ruggedness against detector weight and thickness. With the preceding in mind, further developments are needed with respect to digital X-ray detectors suitable for imaging pipes or other industrial or commercial conduits.